Three of a family killed, no shelter for mourners

Sunday was a day of numbness for the residents of Uttam Nagar. Four bodies had been lined up together for the funeral, but their family did not have a house to mourn in.

This was the scene nearly 24 hours after a four-storey building collapsed in Uttam Nagar, killing four including three of a family.

It took only a few seconds for Gagan Sharma’s world to turn on its head. Gagan lost his wife, mother and his three-year-old son to the accident. “He lost everything in the incident. I don’t know how he is going to handle it. There couldn’t be worse end than this,” said one of his relatives.

Sharma, who was in shock after the incident, had to pull it together to lay his mother Rupa Rani Sharma (61), wife Richa Sharma (38) and three-year-old son Jai Pathak to rest.

His relatives who weren’t ready to take the bodies from Deen Dayal hospital till the time strict action was not taken against the culprits were forced to take the bodies out.

“The hospital tried to literally throw us out with the bodies. They said do whatever you want to but take these bodies from here,” said Manisha Sharma, Gagan’s relative.

Shama’s four year old daughter-Vanshika, who was playing outside at the time of the incident had little clue why she was there at the cremation ground. “She doesn’t understand that her mother, grandmother and brother are dead. She just keeps asking me, why is Papa crying? What do I tell this innocent child? I have no answers to her queries,” said Vanshika’s aunt.

Sharma, an employee with a private company, had been living on the ground floor of the house even before his marriage. “Before the house collapsed, Sharma had told his wife that the house might fall as the cracks were quite visible,” said Sharma’s neighbour.